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Abstract
This article recovers states’ discursive practices regarding “international terrorism” in the 1930s. It examines the internal conditions of the discourse of terrorism among states in this period with a particular focus on its conspiratorial elements and suggests external conditions for this discourse’s emergence and order. Furthermore, it points to continuities and discontinuities between the 1930s discursive series and the constituent discursive forms of the contemporary global terrorism dispositif – an assemblage of power practices which bear on individual human bodies, populations or (rogue or fragile) states and which are all strategically oriented through the concept of terrorism. The purpose of such a genealogical history is to expand the space of dissent to power practices in the dominant structures of (terrorism) knowledge by problematising their object and the ways in which these formations are productive of human subjectivity.
Notes
1. 1. League of Nations, Conf. R.T./P.V.1 (1937).
2. 2. While this methodological choice means that the nuances in the political discourses at the state level remain outside the scope of the analysis, it is justified by the organisation’s almost universal membership and its privileged position in discussing international security issues. The picture produced by this inquiry may therefore be considered not “high-definition (HD)”, but “panoramic” (while remaining topical).
3. 3. The section title is inspired by Yeats’ verses from the Second Coming (1919): “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold/Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world”.
4. 4. New York Times, October 10, 1934.
5. 5. A crackdown on the Ustaša in Italy followed, however, with Pavelić ending up in a Turin prison for some time.
6. 6. League of Nations, Official Journal, Records of the Seventeenth Ordinary Session of the Assembly, Special Supplement no. 156 (1936), Minutes of the First Committee.
7. 7. This “variety hypothesis” is immediately based on a newspaper content analysis conducted in Ditrych (Citation2011) and corroborated by the evidence assembled by Thorup (Citation2010).
8. 8. Letter by Yugoslavia to the Council, November 22, 1934. Doc. C.506.M.225.1934.VII.
9. 9. League of Nations, Official Journal, vol. 15, no. 11 (December 1934).
10. 10. Ibid., p. 1759.
11. 11. League of Nations, Official Journal, Records of the Seventeenth Ordinary Session of the Assembly, Special Supplement no. 156 (Minutes of the First Committee), statement by the Soviet Union.
12. 12. That the terrorist act had to be “directed against a State” was one of the key defining aspects of the crime of terrorism in the final convention on its prevention and punishment. Doc. C.546.M.383.1937.VII, art. 1(2). The duty of states to refrain from any acts supporting terrorism was moreover included as a specification of the existing norm prohibiting intervention (see below).
13. 13. Cf. League of Nations, Official Journal, vol. 15, no. 11 (December 1934), statement by the Soviet Union; see also C.R.T.18 (1936), amendment by the Soviet Union.
14. 14. League of Nations, Official Journal, vol. 15, no. 11 (December 1934), pp. 1759–1760.
15. 15. Doc. C.542.M.249.1934.VII. For the drafts, see docs. A.7.1936.V; C.222.M.162.1937.V.
16. 16. These comments are collected, for example, in docs. C.184.M.102.1935.V and A.241936.V; for an analytical summary of the second round of responses by the Secretariat, cf. doc. C.R.T.25 (1936).
17. 17. See doc. C.255.1937.V (draft conventions); the final versions, doc. C.546.M.383.1937.VII and doc. C.547.M.384.1937.VII; the international conference’s Final Act, Conf. R.T.29; and the report to the Council, doc. C.50.1938.V. The conference was attended by 35 states, with invitations sent not only to the League of Nations’ members, but also to the United States, Germany, Brazil, Costa Rica, the Free City of Danzig, Japan, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Monaco and San Marino. The list of the States that signed the terrorism convention included Albania, Argentina, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Egypt, Ecuador, Estonia, France, Greece, India, Haiti, Monaco, the Netherlands, Norway, Peru, Romania, Spain, Turkey, the USSR, Venezuela, and Yugoslavia.
18. 18. In organisational terms, the closest existing nexus was with the International Conferences for the Unification of Criminal Law (cf. Saul Citation2006a, Citation2006b).
19. 19. “The High Contracting Parties, reaffirming the principle of international law in virtue of which it is the duty of every State to refrain from any act designed to encourage terrorist activities directed against another State . . .” Doc. C.546.M.383.1937.VII, art. 1(1).
20. 20. That is, despite the occasionally verbalised frustration that the imprecise term was imposed on the debate by the Council resolution. “C’est un mot qui ne figure même pas dans certaines encyclopédies et qui, dans d’autres, est indiqué come ayant été inventé par les historiens qui ont étudié la Révolution française et notamment le régime de la terreur”, as the President of the Committee of Experts Carton de Wiart would complain, for example. Doc. C.R.T./P.V.3 (1935).
21. 21. League of Nations, Official Journal, vol. 15, no. 11 (December 1934), Council Minutes.
22. 22. League of Nations, Official Journal, Records of the Seventeenth Ordinary Session of the Assembly, Special Supplement no. 156 (1936); doc. C.R.T./P.V.3 (1935).
23. 23. Doc. Conf.R.T.1 (1937).
24. 24. League of Nations, Official Journal, Records of the Seventeenth Ordinary Session of the Assembly, Special Supplement no. 156 (1936), Minutes of the First Committee, statement by Haiti.
25. 25. Doc. C.R.T.1 (1935), Committee for the Repression of Terrorism, Responses of Governments.
26. 26. League of Nations, Official Journal, Records of the Seventeenth Ordinary Session of the Assembly, Special Supplement no. 156 (1936), Minutes of the First Committee.
27. 27. Doc. Conf.R.T./P.V.18 (1937), Minutes of the Diplomatic Conference.
28. 28. Doc. Conf.R.T./P.V.3 (1937), Minutes of the Diplomatic Conference, statement by Haiti.
29. 29. Doc. C.R.T.1 (1935), Committee for the Repression of Terrorism, Responses of Governments.
30. 30. Doc. Conf.R.T./P.V.1 (1937), Minutes of the Diplomatic Conference.
31. 31. League of Nations, Official Journal, vol. 18, no. 5–6 (May 1937), Council Minutes; cf. also League of Nations, Official Journal, Records of the Seventeenth Ordinary Session of the Assembly, Special Supplement no. 156 (1936), Minutes of the First Commitee.
32. 32. Doc. Conf.R.T./P.V.1 (1937), Minutes of the Diplomatic Conference.
33. 33. Doc. A/PV.2127 (1973), Minutes of the General Assembly, statement by Iran; A/PV.2142 (1973), statement by Austria.
34. 34. Doc. A/56/PV.13 (2001), Minutes of the General Assembly, statement by Singapore.
35. 35. Doc. C.518.M.234.1934.VII (annex 1523e).
36. 36. Doc. C.506.M.225.1934.VII.
37. 37. League of Nations, Official Journal, vol. 15, no. 11 (December 1934), Council Minutes, statement by Yugoslavia.
38. 38. Doc. C.506.M.225.1934.VII.
39. 39. League of Nations, Official Journal, vol. 15, no. 11 (December 1934), Council Minutes, statement by Czechoslovakia.
40. 40. Doc. C.518.M.234.1934.VII, statement by Yugoslavia.
41. 41. League of Nations, Official Journal, vol. 15, no. 11 (December 1934), Council Minutes, statement by Poland.
42. 42. League of Nations, Official Journal, vol. 15, no. 11 (December 1934).
43. 43. The purpose of the committee of experts in drafting the treaties was, for example, to repress “conspiracies or crimes committed with a political and terrorist purpose”. League of Nations, Official Journal, vol. 15, no. 11 (December 1934), pp. 1759–1760.
44. 44. Doc. C.542.M.249.1934.VII.
45. 45. Cf. Doc. C.R.T.25 (1936).
46. 46. Doc. C.R.T.1 (1935), Committee for the Repression of Terrorism, Responses of Governments; cf. also the synopsis of the proposals included in Doc. C.R.T.6 (1935).
47. 47. Doc. C.R.T.1 (1935), Committee for the Repression of Terrorism, Responses of Governments.
48. 48. League of Nations, Official Journal, Records of the Seventeenth Ordinary Session of the Assembly, Special Supplement no. 156 (1936), Minutes of the First Committee.
49. 49. Doc. Conf.R.T./P.V.1(1937), Minutes of the Diplomatic Conference.
50. 50. League of Nations, Official Journal, vol. 18, no. 5–6 (May 1937), Council Minutes, statement by Romania.
51. 51. Doc. C.R.T.1 (1935), Committee for the Repression of Terrorism, Responses of Governments.
52. 52. Doc. Conf.R.T./P.V.3 (1937), Minutes of the Diplomatic Conference.
53. 53. Ibid., statement by Czechoslovakia.
54. 54. League of Nations, Official Journal, Records of the Seventeenth Ordinary Session of the Assembly, Special Supplement no. 156 (1936), Minutes of the First Committee.
55. 55. Doc. C.518.M.234.1934.VII.
56. 56. Ibid.
57. 57. Doc C.589.M.246.1934.VII; doc. C.518.M.234.1934.VII.
58. 58. League of Nations, Official Journal, vol. 15, no. 11 (Dec. 1934), Council Minutes, statement by Turkey.
59. 59. Doc. C.506.M.225.1934.VII, statement by Yugoslavia.
60. 60. Doc. C.542.M.249.1934.VII.
61. 61. League of Nations, Official Journal, Records of the Seventeenth Ordinary Session of the Assembly, Special Supplement no. 156 (1936), Minutes of the First Committee.
62. 62. Doc. C.R.T.1 (1935), Committee for the Repression of Terrorism, Responses of Governments.
63. 63. League of Nations, Official Journal, vol. 15, no. 11 (Dec. 1934), Council Minutes.
64. 64. Doc. C.506.M.225.1934.VII.
65. 65. Doc. C.518.M.234.1934.VII.
66. 66. League of Nations, Official Journal, vol. 15, no. 11 (Dec. 1934), Council Minutes, statement by Romania.
67. 67. Ibid., statement by Hungary. The position of Hungary, at once deploring terrorism and engaging in activities in its own understanding of what constituted terrorism, may perhaps be explained in the framework of state-organised crime (introduced in criminology with the explicit intent to, in a Foucauldean vein, undermine its Polizeiwissenschaft ethos) as a solution to the contradiction between the need for legitimacy and the agreed goals of the political/military apparatus, for which limited means were available at the time (cf. Chambliss Citation1989).
68. 68. Doc. C.506.M.225.1934.VII, statement by Czechoslovakia.
69. 69. Ibid.
70. 70. Ibid., statement by the Soviet Union.
71. 71. Cf. the correspondence between Yugoslavia and Hungary (1930–1934) reprinted in doc. C.518.M.234.1934.VII (annex 1523e), appendices 1–48. While these exchanges related to the political context in which the Marseilles assassinations later took place and were reproduced in the discourse that followed, they were limited to the two parties concerned.
72. 72. Cf. League of Nations, Official Journal, Records of the Seventeenth Ordinary Session of the Assembly, Special Supplement no. 156 (Minutes of the First Committee).
73. 73. Doc. Conf.R.T./P.V.3 (1937), Minutes of the Diplomatic Conference, statement by Belgium.
74. 74. This includes, notably, UNGA resolution 49/60 (Measures to Eliminate International Terrorism), with its definition mechanically replicated in a series of later resolutions, the draft Rome Statute establishing the ICC (1988) and the UNSC resolution 1566 (2004).
75. 75. As in the 1930s, the meaning of terrorism cannot be considered perfectly stabilised, but arguably today it is much more stabilised than, for example, in the 1970s, when a severe discursive battle raged in the UN General Assembly. Cassese (Citation2003) and Saul (Citation2006a, 2012) point out that the legal definition of terrorism remains contested (and the scope of terrorism remains a contentious matter in the negotiations about a comprehensive convention in the UNGA). At the same time, it does not prevent states from articulating statements on terrorism which seem to be governed by a single order of discourse. Moreover, while challenging a recent claim by the UN Special Tribunal for Lebanon that there currently exists a customary international crime of transnational terrorism, Saul finds a broad consensus on the international wrongfulness of terrorism because it seriously threatens or destroys basic human rights and freedom, jeopardises the state and the stability of political life, and threatens international peace and security (Saul Citation2012).
76. 76. George W. Bush, State of the Union Address, January 29, 2002.
77. 77. Doc. A/56/PV.7 (2001), Minutes of the General Assembly, statement by Russia.
78. 78. Doc. A/56/PV.5 (2001), Minutes of the General Assembly, statement by Bhutan.
79. 79. Doc. A/59/PV.12 (2004), Minutes of the General Assembly, statement by Ukraine.
80. 80. Doc. A/56/PV.10 (2001), Minutes of the General Assembly, statement by Germany; doc. A/59/PV.12 (2004), Minutes of the General Assembly, statement by Guinea or A/63/PV.9 (2008), Minutes of the General Assembly, statement by Iraq; doc. A/57/PV.3 (2002), Minutes of the General Assembly, statement by Micronesia; doc. A/60/PV.2 (2005), Minutes of the General Assembly, statement by the United States.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Ondrej Ditrych
Ondrej Ditrych is a research fellow at the Institute of International Relations, Prague, and a visiting scholar at CERI, Sciences Po Paris (2012–2013). He studied Political Science and International Relations at Charles University in Prague and the University of Cambridge and was a Fulbright doctoral fellow at Harvard University (2007–2008). He writes on terrorism, transatlantic security, EU external affairs and the neighbourhood policies.